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One of the many air strikes launched against Iraqi targets during Operation Desert Storm. [Source: US Air Force]The US launches a massive air assault against Iraq in retaliation for that country’s invasion of Kuwait (see August 2, 1990). The air assault begins the day after a UN deadline for Iraq’s withdrawal from Kuwait expires (see November 29, 1990). F-117 Stealth bombers hit Baghdad with an array of high-tech bombs and missiles; many of the explosions are televised live, or on briefly delayed feeds, on CNN, which launches virtually 24-hour coverage of the air strikes. In the first 48 hours of the war, 2,107 combat missions drop more than 5,000 tons of bombs on Baghdad alone, nearly twice the amount that incinerated Dresden in World War II. 'Thunder and Lightning of Desert Storm' - US Army General Norman Schwarzkopf, chief of the US Central Command (CENTCOM), announces the beginning of hostilities by transmitting the following: “Soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines of the United States Central Command, this morning at 0300, we launched Operation Desert Storm, an offensive campaign that will enforce the United Nation’s resolutions that Iraq must cease its rape and pillage of its weaker neighbor and withdraw its forces from Kuwait. My confidence in you is total. Our cause is just! Now you must be the thunder and lightning of Desert Storm. May God be with you, your loved ones at home, and our country.” [US Navy, 9/17/1997]Initial Attacks Obliterate Iraqi Navy, Much of Air Force, Many Ground Installations - The attack begins with an assault of over 100 Tomahawk land attack missiles (TLAMs) launched from US naval vessels in the Persian Gulf and Red Sea, and attack helicopter strikes on Iraqi radar installations near the Iraq-Saudi Arabian border. The assaults destroy much of Iraq’s air defense and command-and-control capabilities. The missile assault is quickly followed by fighter, bomber, and assault helicopter strikes which continue pounding at Iraqi government buildings, power stations, dams, military sites, radio and television stations, and several of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. The strikes essentially obliterate the Iraqi Navy, and drastically cripple the Iraqi Air Force. (Between 115 and 140 aircraft and crews of the Iraqi Air Force flees to Iran over the course of the war, a move that surprises US commanders, who expected the aircraft and their crews to attempt to flee to Jordan, not Iran. The Iranians will never give Iraq back its aircraft, and will not release Iraqi air crews for years to come.) A US Navy review later calls the combined Navy-Marine air campaign, conducted in concert with US Air Force strikes, “successful beyond the most optimistic expectations.” The Navy later reports that “allied air forces dropped over 88,500 tons of ordnance on the battlefield.” [US Navy, 9/17/1997; NationMaster, 12/23/2007] Iraqi anti-aircraft counterattacks are surprisingly effective, downing around 75 US and British aircraft in the first hours of attacks. The US media does not widely report these downings, nor does it give much attention to the dozens of pilots and air crew captured as POWs. [NationMaster, 12/23/2007]'The Mother of All Battles' - Five hours after the first attacks, Baghdad state radio broadcasts a voice identified as Saddam Hussein. Hussein tells his people that “The great duel, the mother of all battles has begun. The dawn of victory nears as this great showdown begins.” [NationMaster, 12/23/2007]US Embassy Helped Locate Targets for Air Strikes - Deputy Chief of Mission Joseph Wilson, the last American to leave Baghdad (see January 12, 1991), and his staff provided critical assistance to the US battle planners in choosing their initial targets. Over the months, Wilson and his staff developed a “hostage tracking system,” monitoring and recording the movements of the American hostages as they were transferred from site to site to be used as human shields in the event of a US strike (see August 4, 1990 and August 8, 1990). Wilson and his staff were able to identify some 55 sites that were being used around the country, presumably some of the most critical military and infrastructure sites in Iraq. Wilson gave that information to the Pentagon. He will later write, “I was gratified when several months later, on the first night of Desert Storm, long after the hostages had been released, many of those sites were ones hit by American bombs.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 141]

The former Deputy Chief of Mission to the US Embassy in Baghdad, Joseph Wilson, reflecting on the ramifications and consequences of the Gulf War as it comes to an end (see February 28, 1991), will later write: “The war… established the blueprint for the post-Cold War New World Order. For the first time since the Korean War, the world had engaged in a conflict sanctioned by international law. In the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall, America’s foreign policy establishment understood that the next generation’s war would not be of the World War II variety, with huge mobilizations of national assets and a fight for survival among the major powers; it would instead consist of small, bloody conflicts that would best be dealt with by a coalition of the willing operating under the mandate of the United Nations. Our challenge would be to ensure that the United States did not become the world’s policeman, a costly and enervating task, but rather used our power to mobilize coalitions and share costs and responsibilities. In my mind, Desert Shield and Storm were case studies of how to manage both the diplomacy and the military aspects of an international crisis. We were successful in obtaining international financing to cover most of the costs of the war, we were successful in putting together a coalition force with troops from more than twenty nations, and we were successful in obtaining an international legal mandate to conduct the war. It was, in every way, an international effort driven by American political will and diplomatic leadership.” Wilson agrees with President Bush and others that the US had been right not to drive into Baghdad and depose Saddam Hussein (see February 1991-1992, August 1992, and September 1998). The US-led coalition had no international mandate to perform such a drastic action, Wilson will note. To go farther than the agreed-upon mandate would alienate allies and erode trust, especially among Arab nations fearful that the US would overthrow their governments and seize their oilfields, or those of their neighbors. Wilson will observe, “The credibility that we later enjoyed—which permitted us to make subsequent progress on Middle East peace at the Madrid Conference in October 1991, and through the Oslo process (see September 13, 1993)… was directly related to our having honored our promises and not exceeded the mandate from the international community.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 178-179]

Cover of ‘A World Transformed.’ [Source: Bookpage (.com)]Former president George H. W. Bush and his close colleague, former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, publish a book entitled A World Transformed. Recalling the 1991 Gulf War (see January 16, 1991 and After), Bush and Scowcroft defend their decision not to enter Baghdad and overthrow the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, calling it the proper and pragmatic thing to do. They do admit, however, that they were certain Hussein would shortly be overthrown by an internal revolution sparked by the crushing defeat of his military. [New York Times, 9/27/1998]US Might Still Occupy Hostile Iraq Eight Years Later - “Trying to eliminate Saddam… would have incurred incalculable human and political costs,” they write. “We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq… there was no viable ‘exit strategy’ we could see, violating another of our principles. Furthermore, we had been consciously trying to set a pattern for handling aggression in the post-Cold War world. Going in and occupying Iraq, thus unilaterally exceeding the United Nations’ mandate, would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression that we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the United States could conceivably still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 314-315]Younger Bush Disagrees with Assessments - Bush’s son, Texas Governor George W. Bush, preparing for his own presidential run (see April-May 1999), explicitly disagrees with the book’s assessments of US actions during and after the 1991 Gulf War. According to Mickey Herskowitz, the writer working on Bush’s campaign biography, “He thought of himself as a superior, more modern politican than his father and [the elder Bush’s close adviser and friend] Jim Baker. He told me, ‘[My father] could have done anything [during the Gulf War]. He could have invaded Switzerland. If I had that political capital, I would have taken Iraq.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 169]

As the presidential campaign of Texas Governor George W. Bush takes shape, many in the media assume that a Bush presidency would be much like the father’s: moderate and centrist with a pronounced but not extreme rightward tilt. Bush will be “on the 47-yard line in one direction,” says former Clinton counsel Lanny Davis, while Democratic contender Al Gore is “on the 47-yard line in the other.” But while the media continues to pursue that story, the hardliners and neoconservatives surrounding Bush (see December 1998 - Fall 1999) are working quietly to push their favored candidate much farther to the right, especially in foreign affairs, than anyone suspects. Two of the Bush campaign’s most prominent advisers, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, are making regular and secret visits to the governor’s mansion. “They were brought in and out under very tight security,” a source in the governor’s office will later recall. “They snuck in and snuck out. They didn’t hold press conferences. [Bush political adviser Karl] Rove didn’t want people to know what they were doing or what they were saying.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 165-168]Bush is Willing to be Educated - Perle, like many other neoconservatives, is pleased that the younger Bush may well not be a repeat of the moderate policy stances of the father. “The first time I met [George W. Bush]… two things became clear,” Perle will recall in 2004. “One, he didn’t know very much. The other was that he had the confidence to ask questions that revealed he didn’t know very much.” [Slate, 5/7/2004] Perle will continue: “Most people are reluctant to say when they don’t know something—a word or a term they haven’t heard before. Not him.” A State Department source will put it more bluntly: “His ignorance of the world cannot be overstated.” Rice a 'Fellow Traveler' with Neoconservatives - One of Bush’s most diligent tutors is Condoleezza Rice, a former Bush administration official. Former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, who had mentored Rice, wrongly expects her to tutor Bush in his own “realist” world view, but Rice is far more aligned with the neoconservatives than Scowcroft realizes (see April-May 1999). “She was certainly a fellow traveler,” the State Department source will say. “She came at it more with a high-level academic approach while the other guys were operational. [Her role] was a surprise to Scowcroft. She had been a protege and the idea that she was going along with them was very frustrating to him.” The absence of retired General Colin Powell, one of the elder Bush’s most trusted and influential moderates, is no accident (see April-May 1999). “That’s a critical fact,” the State Department source will observe. “The very peculiar personal relationship between Rice and Bush solidified during those tutorials, and Wolfowitz established himself as the intellectual face of the neocons and the whole PNAC crew” (see June 3, 1997). Wolfowitz: Redrawing the Map of the Middle East - Wolfowitz teaches Bush that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is only incidental to the larger issues engulfing the Middle East (see March 8, 1992). The State Department source will recall: “Wolfowitz had gotten to Bush, and this is where Bush thought he would be seen as a great genius. Wolfowitz convinced him that the solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was to leap over this constant conflict and to remake the context in which the conflict was taking place; that democracies don’t fight each other. [He convinced Bush] that the fundamental problem was the absence of democracy in the Middle East, and therefore we needed to promote democracy in the Middle East, and out of that there would be a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” The US must, Wolfowitz says, exert its moral and military might to eliminate the brutal dictators in the region and replace them with Western-style democratic leaders. Wolfowitz believes “[t]he road to peace in Jerusalem,” as author Craig Unger will write, “run[s] through Baghdad, Damascus, even Tehran.” It is unclear if Bush grasps the full implications of the theories of Wolfowitz and Rice. Certainly the idea of this “reverse domino theory,” as Unger will call it, is far different from anything previously espoused in US foreign affairs—a permanent “neo-war,” Unger will write, “colossal wars that would sweep through the entire Middle East and affect the world.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 165-168]

Just hours after the terrorist attacks on Washington and New York, neoconservative writer and former CIA asset Michael Ledeen writes an op-ed at the National Review’s website attacking the more moderate “realists” in the Bush administration. Ledeen urges someone in the White House to remind President Bush that “we are still living with the consequences of Desert Storm [referencing the decision not to overthrow Saddam Hussein in 1991—see February 1991-1992 and September 1998] when his father and his father’s advisers—most notably Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft—advised against finishing the job and liberating Iraq.” Ledeen is clearly implying that Iraq is responsible for the attacks, and that Bush should “correct” his father’s mistake by invading Iraq. [Unger, 2007, pp. 215]

Brent Scowcroft, the head of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and a close adviser and friend of former President George H. W. Bush, is becoming increasingly marginalized in the current administration. Realizing he has little real influence in the White House, he goes public with his measured objections to a US invasion of Iraq by publishing an editorial in the Washington Post entitled “Build a Coalition.” Scowcroft reflects on the decision not to invade Baghdad in the 1991 Gulf War (see September 1998), and writes that if the US had then overthrown Saddam Hussein, “Our Arab allies… would have deserted us, creating an atmosphere of hostility to the United States [that] might have well spawned scores of Osama bin Ladens. [We] already hear voices declaring that the United States is too focused on a multilateral approach. The United States knows what needs to be done, these voices say, and we should just go ahead and do it. Coalition partners just tie our hands, and they all will exact a price for their support. Those are the same siren songs of delusion and defeat that we heard in 1990. We can no more succeed in our present campaign by acting unilaterally than we could have in 1990.” If the “war on terror” is to succeed, he writes, it will have to be “even more dependent on coalition-building than was the Gulf War.” Scowcroft finally understands, author Craig Unger will observe, that the neoconservatives are using 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq. “He knew they were going to try to manipulate the president into thinking there was unfinished business” in Iraq, an administration official will recall in 2007. “For [Scowcroft] to say something publicly was a watershed. This was where the roads diverged.” [Washington Post, 10/16/2001; Unger, 2007, pp. 228]

Former ambassador Joseph Wilson has numerous conversations with Brent Scowcroft, the former national security adviser to the first President Bush (see September 1998), and the head of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, about what Wilson sees as the worrisome drive to war with Iraq in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Wilson is particularly worried about the neoconservatives in the current Bush administration and their call for the implementation of the Iraq Liberation Act (see October 31, 1998) by declaring war against Iraq. Scowcroft is dismissive of the administration neoconservatives, calling them “right-wing nuts” and assuring Wilson, “They will not win the policy.” Wilson is not so sure, telling Scowcroft that, as he will write in 2004, “[w]e were committing our future… to a band of fanatics whose approach was the opposite of that pursued by the first President Bush, or articulated by candidate George W. Bush (see October 3, 2000 and October 11, 2000)…” Wilson believes, wrongly that Scowcroft’s “sage counsel [is] being listened to in the White House” (see October 16, 2001). [Wilson, 2004, pp. 290-291]

Brent Scowcroft, a Bush foreign affairs adviser who has been marginalized and scorned by administration neoconservatives (see October 16, 2001 and March 2002), appears on CBS’s “Face the Nation” to make his case that the US should not invade Iraq. Scowcroft, with the blessing of his friend and patron George H. W. Bush, is in the midst of a one-man media blitz, having already appeared on Fox News and the BBC to argue his position (see September 1998). The administration’s other high-profile centrists, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, have refused to publicly disagree with the administration’s push for war. [Unger, 2007, pp. 242-243] Scowcroft warns that a unilateral invasion of Iraq could destabilize the Middle East and undermine efforts to defeat international anti-American militant groups. He says: “It’s a matter of setting your priorities. There’s no question that Saddam is a problem. He has already launched two wars and spent all the resources he can working on his military. But the president has announced that terrorism is our number one focus. Saddam [Hussein] is a problem, but he’s not a problem because of terrorism. I think we could have an explosion in the Middle East. It could turn the whole region into a cauldron and destroy the war on terror.” [London Times, 8/5/2002]

Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) speaking to the US Senate. [Source: Life magazine]Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA), a longtime critic of the Bush administration’s push for war with Iraq, delivers a blistering rebuke from the floor of the US Senate to President Bush and the White House over what he calls “lie after lie after lie” it has given to the American people to justify the Iraq invasion. Kennedy calls the war “unnecessary… based on unreliable and inaccurate intelligence,” and notes that the US occupation of Iraq “has not brought an end to danger. Instead, it has brought new dangers, imposed new costs, and taken more and more American lives each week.” Iraq “was not a breeding ground for terrorism,” Kennedy asserts. “Our invasion has made it one.” 'Trumped-Up' 'Double Talk' - He accuses the administration of taking the nation to war on the basis of “trumped-up reasons” and “double-talk,” saying: “The American people were told Saddam Hussein was building nuclear weapons. He was not. We were told he had stockpiles of other weapons of mass destruction. He did not. We were told he was involved in 9/11. He was not. We were told Iraq was attracting terrorists from al-Qaeda. It was not. We were told our soldiers would be viewed as liberators. They are not. We were told Iraq could pay for its own reconstruction. It cannot. We were told the war would make America safer. It has not. Before the war, week after week after week after week, we were told lie after lie after lie after lie.” Getting out of Iraq - But, Kennedy notes, now that the US is in Iraq, it cannot just withdraw and leave the country “to chaos or civil war [and risk it] becoming a danger to us far greater than it did before. The misguided policy of the past is no excuse for a misguided policy for the future. We need a realistic and specific plan to bring stability to Iraq, to bring genuine self-government to Iraq, to bring our soldiers home with dignity and honor.” Kennedy says he will vote against the administration’s $87 billion “emergency funding” bill for the occupation, and will continue to vote against future bills until the administration outlines a plan for withdrawing from Iraq. “A no vote is not a vote against supporting our troops,” he says. “It is a vote to send the administration back to the drawing board. It is a vote for a new policy—a policy worthy of the sacrifice our soldiers are making, a policy that restores America as a respected member of the family of nations, a policy that will make it easier, not far more difficult, to win the war against terrorism.” 'Huge' Spending Outlay - Kennedy gives examples of what the $87 billion is not being spent on: “It is 87 times what the federal government spends annually on after-school programs.” “It is seven times what President Bush proposed to spend on education for low-income schools in 2004.” “It is nine times what the federal government spends on special education each year.” The World's Next 'Failed Empire?' - Kennedy warns that for the US to continue to be “an occupier of other lands,” to “have to re-learn the lesson that every colonial power in history has learned,” risks making the US “the next failed empire in the world.” The Bush administration ignores the lessons of history, Kennedy says: “The most basic of those lessons is that we cannot rely primarily on military means as a solution to politically-inspired violence. In those circumstances, the tide of history rises squarely against military occupation. The British learned that lesson in Northern Ireland. The French learned it in Algeria. The Russians learned it in Afghanistan and are re-learning it every day in Chechnya. America learned it in Vietnam, and we must not re-learn it in Iraq.” Protecting the US Military - The Bush administration is sacrificing the lives, the health, and the safety of the US soldiers in Iraq and elsewhere to its dreams of empire, Kennedy says. “Even with the best forces in the history of the world, our military cannot succeed if the mission is not achievable, if they are viewed as occupiers, and if we do not have a clearly defined and realistic strategy.… I am profoundly moved by the price they pay to serve our country, and profoundly impressed by their professionalism and commitment.… They tell me that far too many in Iraq believe we are there to take their oil, and that we will stay forever. They have no clear sense about their post-war mission. Some see it as winning the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people. Some believe it is security. Some feel it is to obtain intelligence about opposition forces and weapons caches. Others think it is to prevent sabotage of the oil pipelines and other vital infrastructure. Still others say it is to build sidewalks and soccer fields and schools and hospitals, and other local facilities. Not one of the soldiers told me their mission was to achieve Iraq’s transition to democracy.” Supporting the Contractors at the Expense of Supporting the Iraqi People - The administration is far more interested in supporting large private contractors such as Halliburton and KBR, Kennedy says, than it is in actively helping the Iraqi people. “The administration’s policy of rushing to put large multibillion-dollar contracts in the hands of American firms ignores not only the lesson of history but also the lesson of human nature—the Iraqi people need to be the real partners in the reconstruction effort.” While private firms make enormous profits from government contracts, the most basic functions in Iraq remain unrestored. “Why not scale back the lavish resources being provided to US contractors and consultants and provide larger sums directly to the Iraqi people?” he asks. Ignoring Iraq's History of Conflict and Dissension - The administration has flatly ignored a century of history in Iraq, Kennedy says, a century of division and dissension between warring religious, cultural, and ethnic groups. Since the British carved Iraq from the remnants of the collapsing Ottoman Empire after World War I, Kennedy says, the nation has been embroiled in conflict. “Iraq had no history of unity. In the words of one tribal chieftain, ‘History did not die; the tribes and notables who emerged in 1920 and created our modern state in 1921 are here to stay with all the others who came into being thereafter.’ Instead of learning from this painful history, we condemned ourselves to repeat it. Instead of anticipating the obviously similar and predictable divisions and demands when Saddam’s regime fell, the Bush administration believed that a few favored Iraqi exile leaders, many of them in exile for years, could return to Iraq, rally the population, and lead the new government. That was another failure. The Iraqi people rejected them from the start and resisted their domination.” Working with the United Nations - The Bush administration seems unwilling to work with the United Nations to help bring peace and stability to Iraq, Kennedy says—in his view, a critical error. In January 2000, before becoming Bush’s national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice wrote of the importance of the UN in the US’s foreign relations. Kennedy says: “Condi Rice’s words indict the administration’s own policy now. It is essential to involve the international community as an active and equal partner in the political transition of Iraq. We need to give the UN a central role.… No one doubts that the United States should remain in charge of the military operation. But internationalizing the reconstruction is not a luxury; it is an imperative.” Conclusion - Kennedy concludes by quoting from a book by former President George Herbert Walker Bush and his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, reflecting on their experiences with Iraq and the 1991 Gulf War (see September 1998). Overthrow and occupation was the wrong goal in 1991, Bush and Scowcroft wrote, and, Kennedy says, was the wrong goal in 2003. “It is time for this administration to admit that it was wrong, and turn in a new direction.… We need to actively engage the Iraqi people in governing and rebuilding their country. Our soldiers now risking their lives in Iraq deserve no less. Here at home, all Americans are being asked to bear the burden too—and they deserve more than a phony summons to support our troops by pursuing policies that will only condemn them to greater and greater danger. Yes, we must stay the course—but not the wrong course.” [CommonDreams, 10/16/2003]

Secretary of State Colin Powell is asked by CBS anchor Bob Schieffer whether Senator Edward Kennedy’s assessment that “the American people were told lie after lie after lie in the buildup before the war and in those days after” is accurate (see October 16, 2003). Powell responds: “I have to disagree strongly with Senator Kennedy. The American people were not told lie after lie after lie. The American people were told that we have a dangerous situation in Iraq, that Saddam Hussein was ignoring 12 years of UN resolutions, that he had and was developing weapons of mass destruction.” Powell insists that Iraq may well have had “programs for the development of weapons of mass destruction” even if the actual weapons did not exist, “but let there be no doubt about what Saddam Hussein’s intentions always were. He had weapons of mass destruction, he has used weapons of mass destruction, and the president determined that it was not a risk the world should have to face any longer.” The question is essentially moot now, Powell adds, because Hussein has been overthrown. [US Department of State, 10/19/2003]

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